Burroughs Corp.

During the mainframe era, Burroughs was one of the “seven dwarfs,” a term applied to the seven major mainframe vendors that were not IBM. Like fellow dwarfs Honeywell, Sperry/UNIVAC, and NCR, Burroughs entered the microcomputer market in the early 1980s after IBM introduced the PC. The company merged with Sperry in 1986 and became Unisys, which is still in business today.

The Burroughs microcomputer was the B20 series, introduced in 1982. It was a multi-user system that used BTOS, an operating system licensed from Convergent Technologies. Burroughs referred to it as a “distributed intelligence system.” There were two models in the B20 series: the B21 and the B22. The B21 had an unusual form factor where the monitor and CPU unit sat side-by-side on a shared base. The CPU unit was similar in shape and size to the monitor. The B22 added a tower unit that housed storage.

The B21 came in four configurations: B21-1, B21-3, B21-4, and B21-5. (I have no idea why there is no B21-2.) Only the latter two configurations could function as standalone systems; the other two served only as terminals for a multi-user setup.